


In between

by lake_otter



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Phan - Freeform, Phandom - Freeform, non-au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 07:36:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4697690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lake_otter/pseuds/lake_otter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'll just go to sleep".<br/>"Can I sleep with you?" asks Dan immediately.<br/>Phil looks at him.<br/>"Are you being serious right now?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	In between

Dan gets sad sometimes.

Phil comes back from his trip to his parents. He opens the door loudly, marches up the stairs, drops the paper bag filled with the baked sweetness he got from the station kiosk onto the cabinet. Puts keys there also. Kicks off his shoes. He's yet again almost forgotten the smell of their apartment, and it hits him like it does every time: home. He's home.

He's so glad to be back.

But Dan doesn't meet him in the hallway.

"Have you not been sleeping again", Phil asks, walking into the living room. Dan, melted into the sofa and looking oddly pale, shrugs.

"My trip was very good, by the way", Phil continues. There were times he wished all this would be simpler. That they would be. 

That Dan would.

Dan doesn't say anything, never replies properly when he's in that mode. Phil goes on to make himself a coffee. Sighing, he makes a second cup as well and brings them both over to the living room.

"I don't want it", says Dan.

 

**

"I think. I want to move out", Dan said, many years ago.

"Why?" asked Phil, managing to push the word through his constricted throat.

"Do I need to explain?"

"Yes".

Please don't, he wanted to say. He couldn't ask that, though. That's not what you do, now is it.

Dan paced the room, arms violently flailing, like he always does when he's stressed. Or excited. Definitely wasn't the case.

 

**

It was that time of the year again, when Dan gets darker, gets gloomier. He doesn't speak in the mornings, doesn't go to bed until three or four, his time schedule all fucked up again, and sometimes Phil feels like the only true color of his face is when it's lit blue by the screen glint at night. Elbows unmercifully digging in the mattress, neck bent, no attention paid to the outer world. Uncomfortable pose. It goes on for hours.

What do you see there, Dan, in between the pixels. What are you searching for. 

What have you lost.

They don't talk as much, they don't go out at all, and work feels like work, more than it had ever before.

"Did you stop..."

"Did I stop what?" asks Dan. He's rummaging in the fridge.

Loving me.

"I am editing this video", says Phil slowly. Screen Dan is looking at screen Phil angrily. "And suddenly I get a feeling. It's weird. But not exactly... inadequate".

"Oh, God. For fuck's sake, Phil. Just say what you want to say, I don't have it in me to listen to some kind of strange crap right now".

Maybe some other time.

"Maybe some other time".

"Fine".

Dan goes to his room. It's hard, thinks Phil, one hand clutching the other in a nervous manner. It's actually fucking difficult to be with someone, right. Relationships are work and blah, all that psychological crap. But being with Dan sometimes is twelve billion times harder than you would think it could ever be with anybody. Anyone.

He doesn't even feel guilty about these thoughts anymore.

Dan returns to the room.

"Sorry", he says, "I'm sorry. God, I'm a mess. What did you want to talk about?"

Phil looks at him. Takes all of him in. Dan hovers near the door awkwardly, looks really unsure.

"Come sit with me", Phil says. "Just sit here, okay".

 

**

 

They're in the taxi, on their way back from the radio. The taxi smells weird, and the driver pays no mind to them. Dan sits really close to him, like he rarely does, knee pressing into his. Phil has a feeling he would also hold his hand if he could. He's very tense.

"Dan".

"I can't believe you said that. I fucking can't believe it".

"Forget about it", says Phil quickly, regret filling him instantly in an almost physical manner. Phil is actually capable of being mean, he's not as perfectly nice as most people see him, but now, here, he wants nothing more than to take everything back again.

But he can't. His own words from the morning still ring in his ears as well.

I sometimes feel like everything you used to love about me, he said, you now despise. 

He didn't even think Dan would remember, six hours later. And that was such an outrageously stupid thing to say. Much pathetic, very drama. Who even says that.

It was perhaps building up for too long. 

Everything changed so much. Too much, he sometimes feels like. Phil thought he would never voice it, but then this morning, he just suddenly couldn't hold it in anymore.

Dan sighs audibly, and Phil can feel the shudders running through him.

"You're the one thing I fucking...", Dan says and stops abruptly. The back of driver's head is unmoving, seems like an inanimate object. But they don't take chances, ever.

Their apartment is too quiet, the lights seem too bright to continue the weird conversation. Phil feels tired.

The world "problematic" is stuck in his brain, and he wants it out of there. Problematic relationship. Problematic partner in crime. Problematic world and problematic Phil who gets tired and feels like. Like no one cares for him sometimes.

"I'll just go to sleep".

"Can I sleep with you?" asks Dan immediately.

Phil looks at him.

"Are you being serious right now?"

Dan nods, lips pressed together in a thin line.

"Dan, you don't have to ask that. You never did. You know that".

"I can't understand why you want to be with me", says Dan quietly, and it's in no way happening, no, no way, is this it, and Dan's sitting on the sofa, hugging his own arms, shoulders pulled in, head bent down. He doesn't look at Phil, and Phil is speechless.

He sits near, doesn't know what to say. Maybe he knows nothing about Dan after all.

"You're my boyfriend", he mumbles finally, "I love you. And. I thought you were breaking up with me. Are you? Breaking up with me".

"God I'm such an asshole", says Dan, to his knees, "I ruin just about everything, don't I".

"You're making this about yourself again", says Phil softly.

Dan doesn't answer.

"Although I'm right here".

Nothing.

"Dating you is fucking hard", he continues, and feels like a weight's been lifted from his chest. He wants to cry and laugh.

"I bet it is".

"Shut up. I am willing to do it, though, for as long as you would have me".

"God".

"Phil's fine".

"God, I hate you so much", and suddenly Phil's lap is full of one fucking heavy Howell, and salty lips are pressed everywhere against his face, "I love you. I love you". 

**

"I don't want it".

"Fine then", Phil says, placing the unwanted cup on the glass table.

He sips his own coffee. Dan continues scrolling, fingertips on keyboard, eyes glued to the screen, deaf to the world.

Three years ago, he would already be asking things. "Have I done something". "Are you ill". "Has something serious happened".

"No", would be his answer. Or not even that, perhaps.

Phil is not too attentive, emotions wise. He doesn't feel other people like Dan does, his skin doesn't often crawl with embarrassment or tingle with pride on someone else's behalf. He doesn't know much about empathy. 

But. About Dan, he knows.

He's looking at Dan's screen, because he can. Dan is answering something in the comments to someone who played the seven second challenge. Phil doesn't have glasses on and has no idea what Dan's actually typing, but he can bet good money that it's something about 'crediting the right people'.

The right people put their fingers on Dan's knee, pet him lightly through the rough fabric. Dan makes an annoyed sound, but doesn't move away. His brows are knitted. He looks sullenly beautiful, painfully so, and has no idea, as usual.

Phil still doesn't exactly know what comfort he finds in between the pixels, what makes him pace around the room at five in the morning, what steals all his strength sometimes, leaving him to stare at the ceiling for hours. But Dan most likely doesn't know himself either, not yet. Maybe it's not even a path. Maybe it's just a state. Maybe it's something else.

Relationships, in no other words, are fucking hard.

Dan presses his cheek against Phil's shoulder.

It'll all be alright.

**

P.S.

 

"Can I go with you?"

"That's just a silly school reunion. Lots of northern folk, half of whom you've never even met."

"..."

"Do you really want to?"

"No, I mean, it's fine, you can go by yourself, it'd be stupid if I..."

"Dan. You really can".

"Are you sure? Really? Because I'll just stay here for the weekend, it's no big deal, because..."

"You really really can".

"Okay then".

**

Fin.


End file.
